So you were shocked to hear that 7-foot NBA center Jason Collins is gay? You should talk to Carolyn Moos. She was engaged to him.

Moos, a former Stanford and WNBA center, dated Collins for eight years and was to marry him in 2009 until he suddenly called it off with a month to go.

Then: hurt, confusion and embarrassment. Today: answers.

Collins told Moos last weekend over the phone before coming out, the first male active American team-sport pro athlete to do so, in a Sports Illustrated story Monday.

"I had to sit down," says Moos, now a personal trainer and nutritional consultant. "I was shocked. There's no words to really describe my reaction. … But this does alleviate some of the pain. … I'm so happy for him. He deserves to live the life he wants."

Nobody -- not fiancées, not four years' worth of teammates at Stanford, not six teams' worth of NBA teammates -- saw this coming.

Especially not Mike McDonald, a childhood friend and former Stanford teammate. A month ago, Collins stopped by the McDonalds' home to see their new baby. For the past nine months, McDonald noticed Collins was more stressed than usual, wasn't quite his bubbly self.

"What are your plans for next season?" McDonald asked.

"Well," Collins said, "it's kinda up in the air right now, because I'm gay."

Collins told McDonald he was planning to out himself. He told him he was ready to live his life in the open. When you're 7 feet tall, there are not a lot of places to hide. The closet must've felt very cramped.

"Nothing, ever, made me think he might be gay," McDonald says.

Not canceling a wedding with a month to go?

"Nope. He just said there was a lot of stuff going on, that he just couldn't go through with it. … I'm happy for him. He seemed relieved to tell his friends."

Collins is now the Jackie Robinson of gay athletes and, like Robinson, strong enough for the job. He's universally loved in the NBA. He's smart, funny and a wheelbarrow full of sunshine in the locker room. He only cares about defense, not scoring points, which is why he'll probably sign for one last season -- his 13th -- somewhere in the league this fall.

Playing everywhere from New Jersey to Memphis to Minnesota to Atlanta to Boston to Washington, he's got more friends than Mark Zuckerberg. He couldn't tell them all ahead of time. One of those was Stanford teammate, Grizzlies teammate and buddy Casey Jacobsen, now playing in Germany.

"I was disappointed I guess," says Jacobsen, 32. "I've always said that if I ever had a gay teammate, I'd hope he'd feel he could share that with me and know that he wouldn't be judged by me. … But I get it. He's in the spotlight now. And I'm so proud of him. If there was one guy to break down this barrier, he's the guy."

Jacobsen's entire team heard the news together in the locker room after practice Monday and it sparked a discussion about how the towel-snapping world of jocks would welcome a gay teammate.

"There were a few ignorant statements, of course," Jacobsen says. "Like, 'I don't know if I'd be comfortable with that.' And I said, 'You guys, you're fooling yourselves if you don't think you've already played with a gay teammate.' I knew I had. I just didn't know who. Turned out to be Jason."

This whole I-don't-know-if-I'm-comfortable argument about gay athletes is 99.9 percent fear and 0.1 percent reality. It's paranoia in high tops. A locker room is about the worst pickup place in the world. It's not like a gay teammate is going to come up to somebody in the team shower and go, "Hey, is this bar stool empty?" It stinks, everybody's exhausted, and the coach is usually yelling at you. And besides, who says you're his type?

"I don't think it'd be weird to have a gay roommate on the road," Jacobsen says. "I don't think it'd be weird to shower with a gay teammate. My ego is not so big that I think every gay man thinks I'm a catch."

If anything, feel glad for Jason Collins that it's all over. All the hiding, all the lies, all the secrets. He had to hurt some people to keep them, starting with the woman he promised to marry.

"I'd mapped out my life completely," recalls Moos, 34. "I knew I wanted to be married, wanted to have children, live in this city, send my kids to this school. … I invested eight years in something. … To be able to recover from that is not an easy process. … But I'm glad Jason can be his own person now. I'm glad he can walk in his own shoes."

Be happy for Jason Collins, the ultimate NBA free agent. He's an agent of change now. And he's finally free.

I'm do proud of Jason for getting the ball rolling, so to speak . Hopefully in the near future we won't need to " come out " from anywhere

Many basketball players came out to support him but Tim had publicly spoke negatively about gays in the past is why I was impressed by him.

__________________
Before you speak to me about your religion, first show it to me in how you treat other people; before you tell me how much you love your God, show me in how much you love all His children; before you preach to me of your passion for your faith, teach me about it through your compassion for your neighbors. In the end, I'm not as interested in what you have to tell or sell as in how you choose to live and give.

Not Phil's triangle offense, Tex Winter devised it. And any team with that combination of penetrators like Jordan & Pippen with a spotup shooter (like Jon Paxson for the Bulls' first 3 titles and Steve Kerr for the last 3) can run it.

The power forwards were also interchangable (Horace Grant for the first threepeat, an ex-Detroit Bad Boy named Rodman for the others). In fact Collins would have fit rather well into Chicago's "center by committee" system then.

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Besides his own peace of mind for acknowledging who he is, this is a good career move for a (34 yo) 14 year NBA veteran. Now he's virtually assured of a roster spot and "meaningful minutes off the bench" somewhere next season.

Former Green Bay Packers safety LeRoy Butler sent out a tweet this week to express a simple thought: "Congrats to Jason Collins."

Butler, as many current and former professional athletes did, was acknowledging Collins for coming out as the first active gay player in the four major American professional sports. But because of those four words posted to Twitter, Butler, who does speaking engagements at churches across the state of Wisconsin, now has one fewer church on his schedule after its pastor was outraged over the tweet.

"I got a phone call, and one of the ladies from the church said, ‘Did you congratulate some gay person?" the four-time Pro Bowl selection explained to FOXSportsWisconsin.com on Wednesday. "I said, ‘Yeah!' I thought she was happy about it. I told her I congratulated Jason Collins for coming out. She said, ‘Ohhhh, that's not good because I don't think the pastor wants you to talk about that in your speech.' "

Butler's speech is about bullying, using his own childhood examples to help kids who are victims of it. He had never addressed or mentioned anything about homosexuality in his speeches before.

"So why is this an issue?" Butler wondered. "Why is it a big deal?"

Butler, who describes himself as an every-Sunday church-going Christian, wouldn't divulge the name or city of the Wisconsin church, saying he wasn't trying to be a "devilish guy about it." Butler also didn't want to give specific attention to that church's pastor, the same one who called him to officially cancel the speaking engagement about bullying.

"The pastor called me and he wanted to quote the Bible and all that," Butler said. "I told him that I thought God loves everybody. I thought only God can judge. He just went off on me, saying, ‘We can't have our kids knowing about that (Collins coming out as gay).' I said, ‘Whether you like it or not, the kids are going to know about it. It's all over the news.' He didn't think so. He thought the kids in the church would ignore it."

Butler said the pastor called again later that day.

"He called back and said, ‘If you ask God for forgiveness and apologize and remove the tweet, we'll let you do the speaking engagement,' " Butler said. "I told him, ‘No, I can't do that. Someone needs to speak up for them, and you ask me to do something as a man that isn't what I believe in just to make that money.' "

Butler said the pastor then hung up the phone and canceled the church's contract with him, citing a "moral clause."

Butler, who has spoken at the same church in previous years, receives $8,500 every time he delivers his speech to an audience. That money does not come from the churches, though. It comes from sponsors. In fact, the churches where Butler speaks end up making a good amount of money from his appearance through donations.

"That's what was so shocking; I helped them raise a lot of money," Butler said.

Of the four church speaking engagements Butler had scheduled for this summer, only one has canceled. The other three churches have reacted much differently to Butler's tweet about Collins.

"‘We can't wait for you to come,'" Butler said the other three churches told him.

Butler has had four additional pastors reach out to him, all of whom have supported his public stance on Collins' announcement. Butler also has spoken extensively with the pastor at his own church in Racine, Wis., about the aftermath of his congratulatory tweet to Collins.

Butler's church has a much different philosophy about homosexuality than the church that canceled his speech.

"At my church, we don't worry about it; the door is always open," Butler said. "I don't cause anybody any problems. I love being part of the community and making appearances. If I had an agenda, it'd be different, but I'm not trying to do that."

Butler later found out the specifics as to why the church canceled his speech.

"Some real conservative parent went to the church and said, ‘We heard LeRoy spouted off about gays on Twitter and we don't condone that, and we don't want him to speak,'" Butler said. "And the pastor folded under pressure. He folded under pressure, and it's very disappointing. I don't get upset about anything, but this one I couldn't stay out of because I'm just congratulating the guy."

The church's response to Butler saying it was only a congratulations was to point out no other current or former Packers had acknowledged Collins in the same way.

"They said, ‘Well, Aaron Rodgers didn't say anything, Donald Driver didn't, so why did you have to?" Butler said. "I don't know about those guys. This is just me. I'm not interested in knowing why Rodgers or Driver or other Packers did or didn't, I'm just saying what I think."

Considering his speech is about bullying, Butler might just have another talking point for his future appearances.

"To hold me hostage like that (and only let me give the speech if I publicly apologize) is a form of bullying," Butler said. "I can see canceling it if I got in trouble or did something stupid, but that's not what happened. I'm upset about this. I really am."

do you think that magic johnson is gay too? it's virtually impossible to get hiv in heterosexual contact.

Well, let's put it this way. When I was in Los Angeles and Magic was living in Fox Hills when he first got to the Lakers, there were rumors that he had often been at gay parties that included some other big names including a former heavyweight champion (Not Ali). Was it true? Who knows? But the people I heard it from were not in the habit of just making up lies on people.

I also remember when Magic announced that he had HIV, there was a sports writer (I can't remember who) who was interviewed on KNBC in Los Angeles and he was asked that question. I'll never forget his response. He said, "Well you hear things, but....." And then he kind of avoided the subject. Does that mean anything? Who knows?

__________________The famous are rarely significant and the significant are rarely famous.

The world will ask you who you are, and if you don't know, they will tell you.